


Nail You Down

by tawg



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Genre: Closeted Relationship, Established Relationship, M/M, Murder Mystery, Pre-Movie, Serial Killer, early met days, trying to balance your love life with the murder victims your bf keeps finding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-14
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2018-10-15 08:23:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10553166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: Set well before the movie. Nicholas is still in London, and occasionally crimes need to be solved.This story has some sex, some gore, some violence, and some work-place politics. Each new character introduced comes with a little identity card, for your convenience.





	1. Chapter 1

It started on New Year’s eve, which was a good time for things to start. Stephen, for example, had started on a good night out by about eight, started on a rather average packet of crisps at about eleven, and – along with everyone else in the pub – had started the count down early because the telly was on the wrong bloody channel, and there’s always one person with their watch a few minutes fast.

Nicholas was inconspicuously absent.

Which was his general state at such affairs. No one ever expected Nicholas to be anywhere except at his desk, or standing just next to it and strapping his belt on. Nicholas was always working. And if he wasn’t, he was doing something practical like eating, or sleeping, or being prodded into filling in a shift and doing someone else’s work. Rumour had it that, just a few months after he’d been a full constable, even the roster ladies had learned to say “Go see if Angel’s free,” when faced with a desperate plea to swap shifts.

Nicholas worked holidays. Nicholas was working New Years Eve. Stephen had tried to talk him out of it, had coaxed and needled and slung his arm around Nicholas’ shoulders. He’d pressed himself against Nicholas’ side and asked _very nicely_ indeed. And in return he’d gotten that bemused smile that Nicholas had, the one that was more eyes than mouth.

“If you really want to see me, you’ll just have to hunt me down. Won’t you?”

With that smile, and that voice, and that body hot beside him. Stephen took a warm mouthful of his drink as people chorused in counting down (for the third time that evening) around him. His eyes were on the clock above the bar, counting down another two hours. Counting the minutes until Nicholas.

 

 

Looking at Nicholas from a distance, it would be so easy to assume that he was a clean person, that if you were to stand behind him and bury your nose in the place where neck became shoulder the only scents to crawl inside you would be those of gentle soap, fresh aftershave, clean wool. The truth was that no one smelt good coming off duty. No one smelt good after a hard shift of ‘mingling’, of patrolling amongst the great unwashed. Despite having changed into civilian clothes and the application of a healthy amount of deodorant, Nicholas still smelt like a policeman.

Still smelt like beer spilt down one arm and dope puffed into his face and the sweat sweat sweat from walking though mobs and running through crowds. Of being packed between too many hot bodies crammed into narrow Camden streets. Even his hair stuck up in front like a ducktail, from sweat being wiped up over his brow and the press of his helmet. Almost boyband, in a guttural kind of way.

To Stephen, with his nose pressed into that transitional stretch, the fresh collar and the sticky skin and the smooth tickle of hair, the smell of Nicholas was intoxicating. The sounds that Nicholas made, as Stephen wrapped himself around Nicholas from behind – pressing his face into sticky skin and his hands against the sharp angles of hips – were like an oxygen replacement. He could live on it, get high on it, and float away like a balloon-animal mistakenly filled with helium. Filled with Nicholas.

“You’ve been drinking,” Nicholas said, stumbling a little as Stephen fumbled the door open.

Stephen pushed Nicholas through the doorway, dragging him through the flat. “It’s New Years Eve.”

“Was,” Nicholas corrected.

Pressed into his own mattress, tousling and struggling and it was more of a wrestling match than it was foreplay. Kicking at Nicholas’ knees, Nicholas tangling his arms with Stephen’s own, tying fingers together to press palms down into the sheets and the only thing keeping it from being harsh and bitter was the hotness of open mouths and the slow drags of lips and teeth and tongues across chests and shoulders, and occasionally against each other in kisses that were the most tender of battles.

And then Nicholas was between Stephen’s knees, his pupils so large and hungry that there was only the deepest silver slice of iris around them, his mouth red and open and a stripe of pounding-blood-flush across his cheeks. Nicholas was significantly less than a blushing virgin and Stephen, as he felt his lower back coil and his head sink into skewed pillows, doubted Nicholas ever had been.

 

 

Stephen woke up next morning to the shifts and sounds of Nicholas sitting up, and fishing for his mobile on the hardwood floors of Stephen’s flat. Kept awake by the beams of cold morning sunlight streaming through the window and reflecting off gloss and polish, Stephen rolled onto his side, and admired the view of Nicholas Angel’s back muscles shifting and stretching as he fished blindly under the bed. He kept admiring the view as Nicholas stood, mobile to his ear, and strode to the bathroom.

The words “Yes, sir,” filtered through Stephen’s sleep and lust stoked brain. He gave up on the view and flopped onto his back, throwing an arm over his face. His resolution of spending the first day of the new year in various positions in his bed with Nicholas (before calling out for Chinese at, say, four in the afternoon) was looking more and more like a dream, and less like a potential reality.

As if to confirm this suspicion, the phone beside Stephen’s bed rang.

“Wakey, wakey, Lykos,” a clipped, female voice greeted.

Stephen groaned. He could _hear_ the stern press of her mouth down the phone line. “Mornin’ Swit,” he replied, his tongue thick and uncooperative in his mouth. “What time is it?”

“It is eight-oh-five in the a.m.”

Stephen bit back sulking whine in his throat. “And you need me to come in?” He could practically hear the nod that no doubt followed.

“I need you to come in,” she replied, with no trace of sympathy or remorse. “As soon as you can, if you don’t mind. We’ve got something a bit nasty to get cleared up.”

“Alright. It’s fine.” Stephen sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He’d need a shower. From the sounds of it, Nicholas was already having a shower. If Stephen could get off the phone quickly enough, those two elements had a chance to combine into something delightful. But then Swit was speaking again.

“We need you ASAP, Steve. And could you keep an eye out for Angel? We were trying his home phone for twenty minutes before someone went and dug up his mobile number, so god knows where he is.”

“I did see him, briefly,” Stephen replied, his voice easy if sleepy. “If he was on last night, he probably just crashed somewhere nearby. One of the station houses maybe.” He climbed out of bed, stretching and feeling his shoulders pop. “What’s this all about, anyway?” he asked, a hand over his mouth to hide a yawn.

“It’s about the body that Nicholas found last night.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Body? What?

[](http://s86.photobucket.com/user/adams-ransom/media/NYD/Swit.jpg.html) [](http://s86.photobucket.com/user/adams-ransom/media/NYD/Andrews.jpg.html) [](http://s86.photobucket.com/user/adams-ransom/media/NYD/Oreilly.jpg.html)

“Look, it’s not as if you had a night full of conversation on your mind,” Nicholas was saying. “I can’t recall the words ‘Oh hello, Nicholas, how has your night been?’ coming from your mouth.”

“Oh, hello there Nicholas!” Stephen mimicked nastily. “How was your shift last night? Find any deadies lying about?” He paused to flick his still damp hair out of his eyes and suck in a lungful of breath. “Christsake, Nick, you could have at least mentioned it!” They were jogging the city blocks to the station, Nicholas setting the pace and a full stride ahead of Stephen. 

“Forgive me,” Nicholas called over his shoulder, “but I didn’t exactly see an opportune moment in the night’s proceedings.”

“We took a break!” Stephen protested, putting on a short burst of speed to pull level with Nicholas.

“Oh yes, so you were making incoherent noises, I drop in ‘oh, by the way, I found a dead body’, and then you’d make a joke about orgasms and the French.”

“There is no guarantee that I would have made that joke!” Stephen protested at Nicholas’ back as they jogged up the front steps of the station. He couldn’t help but suspect that the only reason they were jogging in the first place was to cut down the amount of time Nicholas would have to spend having that particular conversation. Though there was also the possibility that it was just because Nicholas was a freak when it came to jogging, and running, and jumping over increasingly impressive obstacles only to smash into a dumpster. Nicholas could get a little carried away.

A short, sharp whistle snapped Stephen out of his sulky daze in time to keep him from smacking square into Nicholas’ back, and was followed by and equally sharp “Over here.” In unison they turned and jogged over to fellow constable Swit, following her down a cool blue hallway, and then down another, and then through the cafeteria and into a conference room. “Get changed later,” she was saying, checking her watch and even from behind Stephen could sense the frown on her face. “The powers are in a hurry to get briefings and things out of the way, get this sorted.”

“Thanks, Swit,” Nicholas was saying. Stephen was concentrating on trying to convince his fringe to stay slick in its usual position, pushed up and away from his forehead. He’d have to put up with Nicholas, the pm shift, and god knew who else telling him to get a haircut if he didn’t have things under control by the time everyone snapped out of their panicked preoccupation.

Nicholas slid into place against a wall, with Stephen leaning against a desk beside him and Swit making her way to an empty chair towards the front of the room. The last few stragglers slunk in under the watchful eye of Detective Sergeant Don Andrews. At just over six foot and just past forty-something, Andrews was a commanding figure with a complete lack of tolerance for any kind of nonsense. Stephen sagged a little. Working with Nicholas, Swit, _and_ Andrews was bound to make his life a dull little bubble of perfection in conduct.

“You are here,” Andrews addressed the room gruffly, “because you fulfil all three of the requirements for this case: you were too stupid to leave the city for the holiday run, you are not desperately needed by your own squads, and you have a stomach for the indelicate.”

At a nod from Andrews, an unrecognised sergeant hit a light switch, and a huddled DC switched the overhead projector on. A pale figure lit up one wall, more blue than red. “This person was found last night, arranged in this manner, by a patrolling constable. At first glance, it looks like a rather neat gutting and stuffing job. This is not the case. According to the on-site examination, the cuts and stitching on the front of the body match those of an autopsy. The positioning of the body occurred after rigour mortis had set in. Judging by the state of the corpse, the time of death was approximately three months ago.” Andrews cast a heavy glance around the room. “According to the basic forensics we’ve had done, the body appears to have been removed from a coffin _fairly_ recently.”

Stephen cast his own, sneaky glance around the room, making a tally of officers who were looking shocked, queasy, or just down at their shoes. He wondered how much of this Nicholas already knew.

“At the moment, we have four things to find out,” Andrews continued. “Who did this, why they did this, where the corpse came from, and who the corpse is. No one goes home until we have the answers to the last two questions, and no one sleeps until we have the answers to the first two. Understood?” There were several unnecessary nods from around the room. “Right. Given the nature of this investigation, we have a few hands coming over from Hendon for this one. There may be some new faces in the CSI team, and Sergeant O’Reilly here will be coordinating the fact finding,” Andrews finished, nodding at a sergeant with a thin face and rather enthusiastic set to his smile.

“I want the day and night patrols for the Camden market area to come with me,” he said, with a friendly grin. “The patrols for the other areas to go with Sergeants Peterson and Tinsely, and anyone left over to talk to Sergeant Day in the corner. Okay then,” O’Reilly said with a clap of his hands, stepping forward with that disgustingly cheerful grin on his face. “Lets get you all scrambled.”

“Eggs please,” Stephen’s mouth replied, without even asking his brain for permission. There was a smattering of chuckles, a death glare from Andrews, and the whisper of a sigh from the damning mouth beside him.

 

Stephen ran through files lodged by coroners, morgues, churches and memorial gardens over the last four months – part of a team of three other officers suffering paper cuts and drying fingertips – while Nicholas held his head up with one elbow on a desk, making calls to every relevant place in the phone book and handing out numbers to the hive of officers around him. Nicholas had a way of making sure that things got done that Stephen was yet to master.

“No sir, we can’t give out any such information at this time,” Nicholas was saying, police-speak for ‘I don’t know’. “Any sign of disturbance – loose earth, damaged grass. We have no way to gauge how meticulous the removal was. Yes… yes, I know you have a very large area to maintain…”

Stephen finally caught Nicholas’ glance, and they shared an eye roll. “Could you prepare a list of employees that you’ve had over the past four months? As soon as you can, really. Right, we’ll have someone around in the next few hours then. Thank you very much for your time.”

O’Reilly ferried a list of graveyards by suburb to Constable Swit who was marking a large map with any possible source sites within reasonable distance from the location the body was found.

“Any luck there, Nicholas?” he asked over her head. People tended to learn Nicholas’ name very quickly.

“None by the classic definition,” Nicholas replied, leaning back in his chair with a frown. “It’d be far easier if we knew when the body was dug up.”

O’Reilly smiled brightly. “Well, I’m sure CSI will get to us as soon as they can.”

“At least we know it was dug up,” Swit said from her map. “Not just kept on ice for a while.”

“Exactly. So we’ll find the location eventually. In the meantime we just have to cast our net as wide as we can. Bodies don’t just jump up themselves and all that.”

Nicholas nodded. “At the moment Daggs and I are focusing on a possible blockage of information – if a member of maintenance personnel saw a disturbed grave but declined to report it-”

“Or if the guy did it himself,” Daggs called out, one hand over the mouthpiece of the phone receiver in his hand.

“We have several establishments in the area working on lists of personnel – grounds staff and mortuary techs.”

“Sounds like a good start,” O’Reilly said approvingly. “Call around for another hour, and then I want you and Stephen-” 

“It’s pronounced _Steven_ ,” Stephen muttered.

“- to get out there and do the legwork. I’ll coordinate you from here.”

“Yessir,” Nicholas said with a nod, eyes already back to his list of phone numbers. He didn’t direct his expression at anyone in particular, but Stephen couldn’t help noticing the satisfied smile curling one corner of Angel’s mouth. Stephen couldn’t help noticing a lot of things about Nicholas.

 

“Well,” he said sometime later, “that was a delightful waste of time.”

“Look on the bright side,” Nicholas said flatly, dropping a whole sheaf of papers onto a desk along with his constable’s helmet.

“What bright side?” Stephen shot back, sinking into his seat.

“We won’t get to follow most of this up, for a start,” Nicholas replied, flopping into his chair from earlier. That was the difference between Nicholas and most other people. Anyone else would have said ‘We won’t have to…’.

“Might be right to say that _one_ of you won’t get that pleasure,” Swit corrected, leaning one arm on the top of a desk partition. “Been some burglaries and assault charges overnight – as always – so we need someone to cover until ten.”

“I’ll do it,” Nicholas replied automatically. Stephen frowned at him, and was completely unsurprised when Nicholas failed to notice.

“Good,” Swit replied, “Grab something to eat and get filled in.” She paused, staring at Nicholas for a moment. “And do something about your hair. It’s all sticking up on one side.”

Nicholas automatically lifted a hand, trying to smooth his painfully blond hair flat as Swit stalked off between desks. “I should get it cut soon,” he said absently.

“I don’t know,” Stephen replied. “I think the ‘just got out of bed’ look rather suits you.” Nicholas frowned at him.

Stephen smiled, and wheeled his desk chair close to Nicholas. “You could stop by my place once you’re off,” he said in a low voice.

“Can’t,” Nicholas replied. “For starters, I don’t think I can get away with wearing the exact same clothes three days in a row-”

“So borrow some of mine.”

Nicholas pulled a face. “Very subtle. Then there’s the fact that if I don’t check in at least once a week, my landlady starts selling my stuff. And lastly, I have a track thing in the morning.”

Stephen paused. “What track thing? We don’t have sprints do we?”

Nicholas shook his head, and turned back to his desk, arranging files. “Obstacles.”

Stephen slumped back in his chair. He was loosing out to jumping over walls. “I hate obstacles,” he said.

Nicholas looked over at Stephen with his mouth open, as if he’d just realised something incredible. “ _That_ would explain why you didn’t sign up for it then!” Stephen snorted, and Nicholas smiled, a little quirky at the edges, and then he propelled his chair away from Stephen and the seductive paper work. “Cafeteria time,” he said.

“Try not to find any bodies on your way,” Stephen called after him. Nicholas threw a pen at him in response.


	3. Nail You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it takes a bit of time to get into the swing of things.

February was cold. Colder than December. The grass crunched beneath Stephen’s feet as he jogged beside Nicholas. Twenty years old was too young to be a body. It was a thought that kept coming to him, randomly. To be a body, and dug up, and then arranged like that. No fingerprints – well, none that didn’t belong to the corpse – which wasn’t surprising. Residue from a completely common brand of glove, which also wasn’t surprising. A name, and O’Reilly having to tell the parents.

What a thing to hear.

And then there had been a long stretch of nothing. “Not uncommon,” Andrews had said, but even he had seemed tense around the shoulders. Because it’s really just dragging out the waiting. Just inconsiderate. The twin thuds of two pairs of feet on hard dirt and sick grass; they fell into step so easily.

The way Nicholas’ hand cut through the air as he pointed ahead, cutting through the faint cloud of misting breath, and then his legs stretching further and his pace speeding, and their feet going thudthudthud as Stephen stretched his own pace and overtook.

Stephen could beat Nicholas in a long distance run. But it’s a useless talent to an officer if you could bring someone down with a sprint. Nicholas tore ahead, and the stretch of police tape was like an unbroken ribbon across a finish line. Nicholas lifted it up, and Stephen slipped under it, sucking cold air between his teeth.

“Well?” he said.

“Get some gloves on,” Swit replied. “Bottles and tweezers are in the boot.” And then they set to work.

It was an alleyway, again. And a body – young, male – again. And wood, and… the hands were different. It had been tape, the first time. Tape with no fingerprints, and some inconclusive dust caught between skin. The forensics team were still photographing the new body. Still pointing out the stitching on the y-shaped incision down the front.

There was a snap of latex, and then Nicholas stepping past him. Stephen shook himself, and went to follow suit. He was distracted for a few moments by consoling a rather shaky looking constable who was clutching an emergency sickness bag.

“It’s okay,” he said, pulling a pair of gloves from the box. “Everyone gets sick at least once when it comes to bodies.

He received a dull look in response, and then turned to follow the constable’s shift in focus. Nicholas was crouched beside the body, pointing at something by a hip with his pen and his blue-gloved hands.

“Well,” Stephen conceded, “almost everyone. Just try to stay upwind.”

 

 

It took a while for the body to be taken away, screens erected around it as some mild deconstruction took place. Quiet retching punctuating the sounds of metal being pulled through skin, and Swit silently passed around breath mints. The few police staff feeling awkward and out of place around the mix-and-matched forensics team. Forensics were understaffed too, new faces had indeed been pulled in from all over London. Stephen did his best to fit in with two men in the white body suits, chatting about football and taking photos of footprints and litter when they told him to.

Swit followed slowly behind him, picking up bits of nothing and slipping them into screw-top vials, setting an example for everyone else. Nicholas had, at one point, been helping to move screens and the body in general. Then he’d been absorbed into the group of people wrapping up the bits of wooden structure for transport. Nicholas had a way of talking that made people forget which uniform he was wearing. Sometimes he could make people forget he was wearing a uniform at all. He appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and crouched beside Swit to help collect granules of smashed safety glass.

“What was up with his hands?” Swit asked, eyes on the ground.

“Nails,” Nicholas replied. “Into the wood.”

“Christ complex, then?”

Nicholas shrugged. “Looks like it. Wait ‘til the profile’s been done.”

Swit nodded. “So who was that girl you were talking to?” she asked innocently.

“What girl?” Nicholas replied.

“The tall one, by the forensics van.”

Nicholas frowned, screwing the top on one vial, and unscrewing the top of another. “Forensics,” he replied. “From Hendon.”

“Right,” Swit replied. And then there was an impatient yell from over by another set of footprints and Stephen obligingly trotted over, leaving the suddenly stilted conversation behind him.

 

 

The Camden station was not exactly small, but the cafeteria was crowded with the extra bodies milling around, and Stephen took the opportunity to press himself as close to Nicholas as he could in the four-pm snack line. Economy of space, and all. Nicholas’s face twisted in annoyance, but he didn’t move away.

“I heard you got in on the detectives’ briefing,” Stephen said.

Nicholas shrugged in response. “Spend enough time standing next to a corpse,” he said, and trailed off as he set a sandwich on his tray.

Stephen nodded. “So,” he said. And let it hang in the air. Nicholas’ mouth twisted, but he didn’t offer anything. Stephen kicked him in the ankle, and gave him a meaningful look. Nicholas sighed, and accepted a bottle of apple juice. “Come on then,” he said as Stephen wrapped a cold hand around a paper cup of mediocre coffee, “let’s eat outside.”

It was cold outside, the two of them hunkering down in their jumpers and staying close to the walls of the building. “So,” Stephen prompted again.

Nicholas shrugged. “Most of it’s obvious,” he said. “Attention-seeking, assuming male. Poses the bodies. Had to dislocate some joints to do it, a few bruises on this one.”

“After death?”

“Naturally,” Nicholas replied around a mouthful of sandwich. “Looks like he was dead for maybe a few weeks, according to prelim forensics.”

“That’s a lot more recent than the last one,” Stephen said, sipping at scalding coffee, cringing at the taste.

Nicholas shrugged. “He’s getting the hang of it.” He paused, examining the contents of his sandwich. “Could work out best for us, really. Got a shorter time-span for the body to have been taken, and with all the ringing around we did with the last one people will have been keeping an eye out.”

Stephen nodded. “So we’ll be going over the same old shit tomorrow then?”

Nicholas paused. “Actually,” he said delicately, “I’m going to be filling some of the DCs in on the groundwork we did last time.”

“What?”

“Well, a heap of our lot got shifted over to the supposed drug killing a fortnight back. They can’t get pulled off over there without someone to take over, and since this is so high-profile–”

“So why are you getting lumped in with them?”

Nicholas shrugged. “Someone has to do it.” He shook his bottle of apple juice before opening it, the sweet smell overpowering the coffee aroma. “Did you want to catch up after shift?” he asked, staring at the juice.

“I can’t,” Stephen replied, brushing his pants as he stood up. “Some of us have real police work to do.”

“I hope you can follow their example then,” Nicholas said dryly. Stephen flung his undrunk coffee out onto the patch of grass beside them. Knowing Nicholas, he’d pick the fucking cup up before he came back inside.


	4. Nail You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stephen learns a little bit about Nicholas.

[](http://s86.photobucket.com/albums/k106/adams-ransom/NYD/?action=view&current=Evan.jpg)  


It was a few weeks. A few weeks of getting things done and doing their jobs and, of course, getting frustrated with dead ends and getting nowhere. Despite what the television shows might claim, there was only so much a body could tell you. The two they had found (and were yet to release back to the families) were refusing to hand over a new name, an address. Not even a foreign hair. Fingerprints were a given, but how many people touched a roll of tape before it was sold? How many hands caressed a plank of wood? So many partials, and not a single match.

And then there was Nicholas, as always, mixed up somewhere with everyone else. Correlating data, running things from one side of the building to another. If anyone needed to pass information to Andrews when he was in a foul mood (which was most of the time) they got Nicholas to do the actual passing, pulling him aside as he ran from the cafeteria to a conference room, trying to clip his belt on for a patrol. In another life, he would have made an excellent PA. A little whirlwind of flurry and information, and Nicholas was only at the hub of it if you were paying very, very close attention.

In another life, Stephen wouldn’t be paying attention at all.

There was something unwavering about Nicholas. Something hard to quantify but easy to admire. As much as Stephen hated the way Nicholas could throw himself into the job, could work himself through mere exhaustion and boredom and out the other side into some kind of proficient clarity, there was the way he curled his mouth when he did it. The way he could roll his eyes, or sigh, and shoot someone down more effectively than all the scathing words Stephen possessed. Stephen wanted to understand what words stayed coiled in Nicholas’ head while all those little signs did the work for him. Stephen wanted to see Nicholas smile more, wanted to be the one to put it in place.

He raised his knuckles, and knocked on the scratched wood of Nicholas’ door. “Nicholas?” he called. “You in?”

There wasn’t an immediate response, other than a slight raise in the volume of the hard music coming from next door. It was a tiny, awkward building that Nicholas lived in. Like a sub-divided town house, but without the architecture and structural stability of an actual town house. Two rooms to a floor, and a shared bathroom lurking somewhere in a basement. There was a lift that serviced the few floors, and an ‘out of order’ sign hanging on its ground floor doors.

Stephen rapped his knuckles against the bitten wood again, before slouching against it. He’d had to get the address off Swit. And Swit only had it because she regularly got the job of getting people out of bed and calling them in. Swit was a good person to know if you needed some convenient information. Stephen huffed out a sigh, and headed back towards the stairs. His way was blocked, because the stairs were blocked. After a familiar grunt, and a shift, Nicholas popped into view.

“Oh,” he said, “hello.”

“Hey,” Stephen replied. “What’s this?”

“It’s mine,” came a voice from the other end of the blockage.

“It’s canvases,” Nicholas explained. “And this is Evan. Evan, Stephen.”

Stephen kept an eye on the shifting material until a face came into view. “You need some help?” he asked.

Evan shook his head. He had a lot of fringe, and most of it was stuck to his forehead with sweat. “Nick’s got it,” he said.

 

 

“We’ll be done in a moment,” Nicholas said, slipping between on edge of the canvas and the dirty stairwell wall. “Here, we’ll just lift it over the railing for the curve.”

Stephen leant back against the doorway, watching as Nicholas moved, his white tank top a little damp between his shoulder blades, the skin on his upper arms pale and prickling from the cold. Just back from a run, perhaps. He could hear Nicholas’ voice floating down from above. “Maybe next time you should get everything into your room _before_ you assemble the canvases,” he said. There was a murmur from Evan, and Nicholas laughed. Stephen stared out the dusty window across the stairwell, giving him an unsurpassed view of the side of the building opposite. It was brick.

 

 

Light had slid a little way along the brick wall by the time Nicholas came back down the stairs, wiping the sweat and dust from his hands off onto his pants.

“Art student,” he said by way of explanation.

“Ah,” Stephen replied.

“He can be a little ambitious with his projects.”

“Ambition isn’t a bad thing,” Stephen said, looking down at his shoes as Nicholas fiddled with getting his door open. It wasn’t locked, just stiff.

“I wouldn’t know,” Nicholas replied.

Stephen snorted, and trailed into the room behind him. Just one room, with a cook top and fridge in one corner, and two jutting walls that cornered off the sleeping area. Other than that, Nicholas had a large kitchen table, a couch, and a book case. A coffee table sat comfortably beside Nicholas’ twin bed.

“I was about to say that you had plenty,” Stephen replied, “but then I saw your flat.”

Nicholas laughed. “I like it like this,” he said. “It’s easy to maintain, and it’s not like I spend that much time here.”

“I suppose,” Stephen said, lounging against the table. “Still, you have plenty of job ambition.”

“No I don’t,” Nicholas replied, pulling a bottle of water from the fridge.

“You don’t?”

Nicholas shook his head, surprised that Stephen was surprised.

“You don’t want to get promoted or put on any of the special teams or anything?”

“Why would I?” Nicholas asked. “A few more shiny bits on a uniform, a hell of a lot more paperwork, and I’d have to spend less time actually helping people.”

Stephen considered this. “Paper work can be helpful,” he said at last.

“It can,” Nicholas agreed. “But spending time patrolling, and answering calls for help, and assisting those than need it can also be helpful.”

Stephen nodded. “You’re right, of course. You usually are. I just always assumed that you wanted to make sergeant or something.”

Nicholas pulled a face. “All police sergeants are prats,” he said, making Stephen laugh.

“In that case, you’re perfectly qualified,” he shot back with a lazy grin.

Nicholas flicked some cold water at him, and Stephen laughed again, trying to snatch the bottle of water away. It spilt every where, all over the two of them, and then Nicholas pulled off his tank top and flicked it at Stephen, who snatched it away, and grabbed Nicholas by the wrist.

And then they were close.

Nicholas licked his lips, and Stephen could find neither the motivation nor the reason to keep from staring at his mouth. “Did you want to… stay over?” Nicholas asked softly.

“Yeah,” Stephen replied, tilting his head.

And then they were closer still.

 

 

Stephen stretched lazily in Nicholas’ bed, the music from the next room seeping in through the thin walls. There was a little less room to stretch than usual, because a greater proportion of the bed was taken up by Nicholas than when they were lounging in Stephen’s double. Not that he minded the feel of Nicholas’ legs pressed and tangled with his own, or the warmness in the air. He laced his hands behind his head, and stared lazily at the foreign ceiling. It was marked by blu tack, and little holes from actual tacks, and there was a strange point of light that-

“Hey,” Stephen nudged Nicholas with his knee, and Nicholas made an indistinct noise in response. He eventually rolled over, and glanced muzzily at the point on his ceiling. “What’s that?”

Nicholas shrugged and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up at the front. “Just some light. I think there’s a gap in the floor boards and then the ceiling, and it gets through.” He flopped back onto his stomach. “It goes away eventually, when the light gets turned off.”

Stephen nodded, and rearranged himself on his side, returning his attention to Nicholas. He ran a hand down Nicholas’ warm back, and Nicholas made a content humming sound. Stephen let firm strokes wander over all the skin he could reach. The back of a neck, the curve of a shoulder becoming arm, the muscle of a lower back, the luscious curves just below, although that made Nicholas twitch a little, shifting self-consciously. So Stephen dragged his hand away (and that took a fair bit of convincing) and settled into drawing patters across the skin of Nicholas’ shoulder blade.

“Mm,” he said, his fingers finding a small patch of uneven skin. “What’s this?”

“I dunno,” Nicholas mumbled into his pillow. “What’s it look like?”

Stephen propped himself up on one arm, and looked at the pale planes of Nicholas’ skin in the distilled light of streetlamps outside. “Looks like a scar,” he said at last, running his finger around the little circle of skin.

“Ah. Cigarette burn,” Nicholas replied, shifting under Stephen’s fingertips like a cat that isn’t being scratched in quite the right place.

“How’d you get a cigarette burn?” Stephen asked, more because he liked the drowsy, raw sound of Nicholas’ voice than any pressing need to unravel a mystery.

“Party,” Nicholas replied, his words slow and lazy, “at university. A friend came up and hugged me, and lost track of her cigarette.” Nicholas mimicked the sound of sizzling flesh. “Tzss.”

Stephen pulled a face. “Must have been bad to have burnt right through your shirt,” he said, running his finger nails up and down along Nicholas’ spine. Nicholas smiled, his eyes closed.

“I wasn’t wearing a shirt at the time,” he said, an amused tint to his voice. “I rather think that’s why she hugged me, in fact.”

Stephen considered this. “Sounds like my kind of party,” he said at last, dipping a head and licking absently at Nicholas’ shoulder.

Nichols looked lazily at Stephen from under lowered lashes, his face half buried in his pillow. His mouth was curled a little to one side, a confident grin that Stephen pressed his mouth and tongue against. And then Nicholas was shifting onto his side, and pushing Stephen onto his back, and sheets were falling away from torsos and pooling around hips, tangling in legs and fingertips. Nicholas licked a long, hot stripe up the centre of Stephen’s chest. Stephen tangled his fingers in the hair at the back of Nicholas’ neck, and pulled him closer. Nicholas pressed his mouth – pressed his teeth, and his tongue, and that hot sucking wetness that was a little bit wild – against the side of Stephen’s neck, making Stephen arch a little, making him moan.

Nicholas kept him distracted for a long time. And when Stephen let his lazy eyes settle on the ceiling again, the pin prick of light was gone.


	5. Nail You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things happen, people talk to one another, there's a body or two. Usual day at the office.

Nicholas was good at running. There was something sleek and smooth about his form. He was fast, and he was focused. Stephen sat in the bleachers around the track area, and watched Nicholas run, watched the way his arms cut back and forth, the way his knees bent, launching him at a wall, hands catching the top and one toe planting against the vertical surface. The barest scrabble before Nicholas went up, and over, and it was so close to fluid that Stephen felt something like envy inside his chest. And then Nicholas dropped out of sight, too fast and no doubt he’d land a little too hard, and Stephen was able to drag his eyes away, to look at the few other people scattered around the stands. And he spotted one person in particular.

“Hey,” he said, dropping down beside a hunched figure. “Evan, right?” The dark head of hair nodded. Stephen peered around a curved shoulder, and managed to make out the corner of a pad of paper, and a hand holding a pencil covering most of it.

Evan prickled a little under the attention, and turned his body away. “’m just sketching,” he mumbled.

Stephen nodded. “No, I can see why watching the obstacles would be good. Lots of movement and such. Anatomy.” Evan gave him a dark look. “What?” Stephen replied. “The skimpy track uniforms can’t hurt either.”

Evan blushed a little, and went back to his sketching. Stephen noted both of these actions.

“You know Nicholas long?” he asked as the two of them watched Nicholas scale another wall, run along a plank, and then drop off the end.

“A few years,” Evan replied. “We went to church together.”

Stephen raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know Nicholas went to church.”

Evan shrugged. “He doesn’t. Not now, anyway. Before he went to uni.”

Stephen nodded, and filed that information away. “You two must be close, then,” he said, “to have known one another for so long.”

Evan nodded. “He got me the room upstairs, when I moved out of home. He moved in there when he started at the academy, so he knows Mrs Choong – she’s the owner – he knows her really well.”

Stephen rested his chin on his hand, watching Evan watch Nicholas. “I had no idea he’d lived there for so long.”

Evan shrugged. “There’s lots you don’t know about Nicholas,” he said sullenly.

Stephen nodded, and turned his attention back to Nicholas. Stationary now, resting his hands on his thighs and catching his breath. Flushed and sweaty in the cool March afternoon, and waving at the two of them once he spotted them. “I have no doubt about that,” he replied, a little absently, watching as Evan stood up and hopped down the rows of seats to talk to Nicholas, to show him the sketches. Nicholas grinned, pointing at things and chatting. It was like watching two brothers.

Stephen wondered if Evan saw it that way.

His mobile rang, and it was O’Reilly on the other end. Stephen stood up, and let out a sharp whistle to get Nicholas’ attention. Nicholas saw him, nodded, and jogged off to change, giving Evan a parting slap on the arm. Stephen pulled his note book out, and scribbled down a few key points as O’Reilly listed them down the phone line. He completely missed the look Evan gave him.

 

 

Stephen stuck close to Nicholas this time, snapping gloves on and peering at the body. The crime scene photos always seemed to be in sharper focus than the reality.

“He’s changing,” he said, which was really a statement of the obvious.

“Evolving,” a woman in white said from be side him, making Stephen jump. “He’s still trying to find out who he is. Hello Nicholas.”

Nicholas nodded at her. “Janine. Anything yet?”

Janine rolled her eyes. “You were here almost before us,” she said. “Of course we haven’t got anything.”

Nicholas smiled at her. “You’d better got to work then, hadn’t you?”

Janine shot him a look, before zipping up the front of her disposable coverall with a sharp, practiced motion. There was a slight curl to her mouth, before it was hidden away by a blue face mask. Stephen and Nicholas were left standing on the boundary, observing and fidgeting in their latex gloves.

“So,” Stephen started.

“There’s more blood this time,” Nicholas said. “See?” He pointed to a puddle by the body’s feet.

“It’s a corpse,” Stephen replied. “I thought there wasn’t meant to be any left. Well, none that isn’t lumpy by now.”

“It looks pretty thick,” Nicholas said. “And the body doesn’t look fresh. We’ll have to wait until they turn it over.”

Stephen frowned, and fought the urge to lean against something. “So what are they saying about all this then? And don’t you dare pretend you can’t tell me.”

Nicholas frowned, watching as Janine directed people to take photographs, taking samples. “It’s a nutjob, basically.”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “Well thank you for clearing that up, Detective Nicholas. The city of London can sleep well tonight.”

Nicholas shot him a look. “There were thoughts that he was working at a funeral home, grave digger maybe. But there was no obvious connection between the first two bodies, aside from age and gender. Both of them had death notices placed in the paper, so in theory anyone could have known where they were buried, what they looked like.”

“So you haven’t exactly narrowed down your search then.”

“No,” Nicholas admitted, “they haven’t.”

There was a sudden snap of latex behind them, making them both jump.

“Come on, ladies,” Swit shot at them. “Contrary to popular belief, there is work to be done. On the boundary, you’re looking after the gawkers this time.”

“Yes, sir,” Stephen replied smartly. Swit punched him in the arm as they passed one another.

“And send Daggs and Tinsely over so help these guys set a tent up over this thing,” she called after them. “Rain and corpses are a no.”

Stephen saluted at her, before being forcibly dragged away by Nicholas. “You’re not half as charming as you think you are,” Nicholas muttered under his breath.

 

 

The air in the break room steamed, packed full of officers in various states of drying out. Swit had spent twenty minutes with her head under the hand drier in the ladies bathroom before giving up. The mass of curls was now spread out over he shoulders as she sat on a plastic chair, Stephen and Nicholas sitting on the table beside her, drying patches of it with tea towels. Woollen jumpers were draped over any surfaces that weren’t already filled with damp officers.

“This is cosy,” Stephen remarked cheerfully.

“You’d think being stuck in an already occupied coffin would be cosy,” Swit shot back.

Stephen paused to consider this. “Vampire-type occupied, or stinky-corpse occupied?” he asked. “Because the first one has a greater potential for shenanigans.”

“You’re an utter pervert,” Swit replied.

“Why, Emily,” Stephen replied, leaning close, “you know I can’t help it when you’re around.”

Swit raised an elbow as if to smack him in the face, and Nicholas gave him a rather sharp kick in the ankle. Stephen felt encouraged by both these responses. But then someone calling Nicholas’ name caught his attention, and the spell was broken.

Janine stood stiffly in the doorway to the break room. Without her coverall, she seemed to be dressed almost too casually to be allowed in the building. Jeans and a black jacket. She was looking hopefully at Nicholas, trying to catch his attention. Without really meaning to, Stephen nudged Nicholas and pointed her out to him.

“It’s that forensics girl,” Swit said flatly, shifting up to sit beside Stephen.

“Mm,” Stephen agreed, straining to hear what was being said between them. He could make out the shape of Andrews’ name on her lips, and saw her press a folder into Nicholas’ hands. And then they were still standing there, chatting.

“I wish those Hendon people would just stay in their damn labs,” Swit continued.

Stephen turned to her with raised eyebrows. “I had no idea you were so territorial,” he said.

She shrugged, not taking her eyes off Nicholas and Janine. “It’s a big case, I can see the need. But there’s too much overlap, too many people not knowing what to do, and too much time lost over delays in communication.”

Stephen considered this. “And they’re just so… upfront about things,” he tried.

“They are,” Swit agreed, glaring at Janine.

“I mean, it’s like they don’t even know where the appropriate boundaries are.”

“No, they just walk wherever the hell they want.”

“I mean, look at her,” Stephen said, watching Swit carefully. “She’s practically all over Nicholas.”

Swit opened her mouth to reply, and then caught herself. She turned to Stephen with a sharp look that softened into a raised eyebrow. “Is that you being territorial?” she asked in a silky voice.

Stephen pulled a face at her. “Just keeping you on your toes. And if you’re going to storm off now, would you mind swinging by Nicholas and letting him know that his hair is sticking up again. He looks like a prat.”

“And you’d know all about that,” Swit muttered as she slid off the desk. Stephen smiled angelically at her, flicking his own fringe out of his eyes. Swit snorted. “And get a fucking haircut, already.”


	6. Nail You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Stephen and Nicholas spend the entire chapter in bed together.

“So. Now that I _finally_ have you to myself… what’s happening with the third body?”

Nicholas frowned at Stephen. “Oh honey,” he said flatly, “you say the most romantic things.”

Stephen rolled his eyes as he dropped his jacket on the floor. “If you want, we could have this conversation during a ‘break’ in the proceedings.”

Nicholas laughed, and sat on the edge of Stephen’s bed, pulling his shoes off. “Alright then, what do you want to know?”

“Everything I don’t already know,” Stephen replied, flopping down on his bed and leaning back against the headboard.

“Well, to start with, there’s this thing that regular people use called ‘tact’…” Stephen yanked his shirt off, and threw it at Nicholas. It missed, by a significant margin, but Nicholas did flop onto his back, his legs still hanging off the edge of his bed. “We’re expecting more mutilations,” he said. “It’s getting more… they use the word ‘extravagant’. Janine tried to explain it to me. This person, he’s using the bodies like a canvas or something, a way to express themselves.”

“Maybe you should get Evan in?” Stephen suggested. “He could give you some tips on interpreting art. Or maybe just cry about it and then write an essay.”

Nicholas slapped him in the leg. “Don’t be a prick. Anyway. So, what’s being done to the bodies is changing as this person is trying to find the right way to get things across.”

“So, he went from tying the wrists of the first one, to nailing-”

“Right. And he went from just the arms to arranging the legs on the frame as well. And now he’s… finding more ways to decorate it, or something.”

“I’m a big fan of glitter, myself,” Stephen replied, and earned another slap for his effort. “So what was on the back, anyway?”

Nicholas shrugged. “Just lines, coming from two points either side of the back of the neck.”

“Weird.”

Nicholas gave him a look. “Because the rest of this is so damn normal.”

Stephen reached down and idly patted Nicholas' hair. “So how does this person manage to get everything set up? I mean, there’s the frame, and the body – I’m assuming he does one and then the other, because moving them together would just be a nightmare…”

Nicholas shrugged. “No one’s seen anything, apparently. And you’re right, it is strange. I mean, a dense area like Camden.”

“That’s probably why it works then,” Stephen replied. “So many people milling about and going in and out of alleyways, who’s going to notice someone lugging some wood and a supposedly-drunk person about?”

“I think the bodies are too stiff by that point to be passed off as ‘drunk’,” Nicholas replied.

“Whatever.”

There was a pause, in which Nicholas stared at Stephen’s white ceiling, and Stephen stroked Nicholas’ short hair, dragging lazy fingernails along his scalp.

“Do you think we’re going to catch him?” Nicholas asked eventually.

Stephen shifted, trying to make his shoulder blades sit comfortably against the wood at his back. “Well, not us personally. But someone’s bound to. I mean, we’ve got everyone from the morgues to the garden centres keeping an eye out for anything and everything. And showy people always slip up in the long run.”

Nicholas nodded, turning this over in his mind. “I almost miss getting sent out to DV calls in the middle of the night,” he said at last.

Stephen laughed. “Yeah, me too.”

There was the rustling of a quilt cover as Nicholas rolled over onto his stomach, resting his chin on a forearm. “How did you know about me?” he asked.

“Know what?” Stephen asked. Nicholas slid a firm hand up the inside of Stephen’s thigh in response. “Oh, _that_. In the locker room. You’d sometimes have bite marks on you.”

“I never did,” Nicholas protested.

“On the _back_ of your neck.”

“… Ah.”

“Ah indeed,” Stephen replied, sliding down the bed a little. “You never had any girlfriends to talk about, you were always a little funny about looking at people when we were stripping off.”

“You’re a right little detective,” Nicholas said, his voice a warm at the edges.

“I’d like to lodge an objection to the adjective in that sentence,” Stephen replied, letting a hand drift down to Nicholas’ waist, fingers hooking onto a belt loop.

“Your objection is duly noted,” Nicholas replied, sliding a hand up Stephen’s bare chest, “and will be addressed at the earliest opportunity.”

“I should hope so,” Stephen replied, angling his head down. “I do pay my taxes, you know.”

Nicholas grinned, flushed and charming. “I’m sure that you are a most _upstanding_ citizen.”

Stephen snorted, burying his face against Nicholas’ neck. “Oh, Nicholas,” he said. “That was very nearly shameful.”

Nicholas turned his head, licking a stripe at Stephen’s temple. “I blame you,” he replied. “You’re a bad influence.”

Stephen made a happy chuckling sound, and tilted his head to the side, pressing his mouth against Nicholas’ lips. Nicholas tasted warm, and firm, and smelt a lot like damp clothes and clean skin. Nicholas arched a little, and Stephen took the opportunity to slip his hand under Nicholas’ shirt, curling his fingers at the warm skin of Nicholas’ back. There was a brief tousle between the two for the right to press the other back into the mattress, broken by a muffled buzz from Nicholas’ pants pocket.

“If that’s Swit, I’m going to kill her,” Stephen said, pulling back as Nicholas tried to dig his phone out of the pocket he was laying on.

“It’s Janine,” he said, opening the text message.

“Janine,” Stephen said flatly.

“She want’s to meet up for coffee.”

Stephen shoved Nicholas’ shoulder, sending him onto his back. “So tell her you’re busy,” he said, straddling Nicholas’ waist.

“Right,” said Nicholas, texting back. “We’ll meet up later.”

“Not later tonight, you won’t,” Stephen said as he snatched at the phone, missing as Nicholas pulled away.

“What? I thought this would only take ten minutes. At the most.”

Stephen scowled at Nicholas. He made another lunge for the mobile, and sent it skittering across his floorboards. “You’re a nuisance,” he said, pinning Nicholas down.

“Are you going to charge me for it, then?” Nicholas asked, staring up at Stephen with that little curl to his mouth.

“Lingering in my bed,” Stephen replied, pulling back and pulling at the hem of Nicholas shirt. “With malicious intent.”

“It’s a shame we left the handcuffs at work,” Nicholas said as Stephen started working on his belt buckle.

“Don’t tempt me.”

 

 

Stephen had a strange sense of déjà vu when he woke up. The feeling of Nicholas’ arm across his chest, pinning him down, the buzz of a mobile pulling him away from the tempting sleep-space his brain had been in. He shoved at Nicholas, making him roll over with a groan.

“Go answer your mobile,” Stephen said, poking him in the back.

“You’re the one that threw it over there,” Nicholas mumbled back. “You go answer it.”

Stephen considered this, and then considered the toasty pleasantness of his bed. He eventually decided that whoever was ringing would give up eventually. The phone rang out. And then there was a pause. And then it started ringing again, vibrating across the floor. Stephen groaned, and finally hauled himself out of bed to answer it.

“Mornin’ Swit,” he said groggily.

“How’d you know it was me?” she replied. “And why are you answering Nicholas’ phone?”

“Because he’s a lazy bastard,” Stephen replied, sinking gratefully back under his covers. “Hang on.” Stephen dropped the phone on Nicholas’ head gleefully, delighting in the angry noise it evoked.

“’llo?” Nicholas said. Stephen pressed his head close, trying to hear Swit’s side of the conversation, and Nicholas tried to shove him away.

“We’ve got another body.”

“What?” Nicholas sat up in bed, smacking Stephen in the face by accident.

“Why so quick?” Stephen asked, clutching his nose. “Ow, you bastard.”

Nicholas relayed the question to Swit, and then relayed Swit’s answer to Stephen with a shrug.

“You should see this, Nick. It smells so bad.”

Nicholas paused. “That’s hardly an incentive. You need us to come in?”

“Andrews and O’Reilly are both asking for you,” Swit replied. “And I suppose Steve can tag along, if he has nothing better to do.”

“Okay,” Nicholas said briskly. “Have the location waiting at the station. We’ll be there in a bit.”

Stephen lifted his hand gingerly away from his nose as Nicholas hung up. “You didn’t have to volunteer me as well,” he protested.

“Yes I did,” Nicholas replied, leaning over and placing a gentle kiss on Stephen’s nose. “Now get up before I drag you out of bed.”

Stephen whined. “Do we at least get to shower first?” he asked, setting his feet once more on the cold floor.

“No.”


	7. Nail You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Far less happens in this chapter than I thought.

**Chapter 7**  
Swit had been right. The smell was awful, making both officers cringe away from it. All bodies smelt bad, even the living ones. It was a kind of rule. The previous _arrangements_ had smelt like rotting and formaldehyde, hints of blood and other uncomfortable nuances that the mind tried desperately to ignore. The current one seemed to be stripped of these, the empty place where they should be instead filled with the overpowering stink of –

“Bleach,” Swit supplied. “The whole body’s been soaked in it.”

“That would explain the colour,” Stephen replied, trying to peer at the body without actually going anywhere near it. “What’s that on the shoulder?”

“Bite mark,” Swit supplied.

Stephen considered this. “Ew,” he said at last.

“Think we’ll be able to get anything from it?” Nicholas asked.

Swit shrugged. “Hard to say. Biting would imply close contact, which would imply some kind of incriminating substance left behind. But then, with all the bleach... Imprints, maybe. Of the teeth.”

“Great,” said Stephen. “We’ll get the joy of working through dental records.”

“It’s hardly labour intensive,” Nicholas replied.

“I know. But you still have to sit there while the computer goes searching for matches.”

“Diddums,” Nicholas said absently.

There was a creak from the frame as the feet and hands were pulled free, and a hushed noise as the body was pulled away. And then a very loud absence of sound as the forensics team stared at it.

“What is it?” Nicholas asked Swit in a low voice. She shrugged in response, and seemed completely unsurprised when Nicholas and Stephen pushed past her. They drew to a sudden halt at the edge of the small crowd, their dark uniforms standing out as two blemishes against a swirl of white body suits.

“Where’s the incision?” Stephen asked at last, staring at the unmarred front of the corpse.

“There isn’t one,” a female voice replied from by his ear. “It’s fresh. Hullo, Nicholas. Still up for that coffee?”

Nicholas nodded weakly, without taking his eyes off the body. “Maybe a little later.”

 

 

Stephen ached. His feet hurt from walking and running, his thighs hurt from climbing so many stairs in the surrounding buildings, and his head hurt from talking to stupid people. It didn’t matter how many times you told someone that, in fact, you didn’t have anything to tell them, they never seemed to accept it. There followed either accusations of the bureaucracy holding out and therefore putting innocent people at risk, or accusations of incompetence that struck a little too close to home.

The sun was coming up as Stephen stiffly clambered out of the patrol car, rapping his thanks on the roof, before climbing the front steps of the station, his helmet swinging in one hand. Orange rays spreading across low cloud as he blearily sat on a table and watched as other constables cowered under Andrews’ mad ratings that (a) something really should be done about this rather silly chap on the streets. Sergeant O’Reilly then spent a painfully perky moment chattering about how (b) no one was to mention anything to anyone about body snatching turning into a murder, because the people really didn’t need to know about that sort of nasty business. And then Andrews took over once more to drive home the final point: (c) they were all rather incompetent.

Stephen kicked at Nicholas’ ankle as the two sergeants wrapped up. “Join me for some breakfast?”

Nicholas cringed. “How can you eat right now?”

Stephen shrugged. “I wasn’t planning to be pouring over the scene photos while I did it. Although, if you’re volunteering to take my mind off things, I wouldn’t mind using your stomach as a plate.”

Nicholas swatted at him. “My stomach is currently free of incisions, and I was planning on keeping it that way, thank you.”

Stephen sulked. “Spoil sport.”

 

 

“I get that you need to eat,” Nicholas said. “I just don’t understand why you feel compelled to eat _that_.”

Stephen was about a third of his way through a plate of English breakfast, with extra grease (and Nicholas was about a third of his way through watching Stephen with a mildly put-off look upon his face) when a lean figure dropped into the empty space beside Stephen on the cafeteria bench. It pushed a coffee across the table, towards Nicholas.

“So,” Janine said, “have you heard what the detectives are saying?”

“If it’s that old rumour about Andrews and Martin from filing, I still don’t believe it,” Stephen replied idly. “Andrews would never bottom.”

Janine spared a moment to give Stephen a blank look. “You are an utter pervert,” she said at last. “But on the right track. No, number four, you’ll never guess how he died.”

Nicholas raised an eyebrow at Janine as he blew on his hot coffee. “Do I want to?” he asked.

“Strangulation,” Janine said, sitting back proudly. “Bruises on the neck and all. We think rope, at the moment.”

“Rope, tape, nails,” Stephen listed, “this guy’s a regular handyman.” He forked some egg into his mouth, and regretted it. “I predict polyfilla and a hammer-drill at the next one.”

“Got a time of death, yet?” Nicholas asked, ignoring him completely.

“Going by decom, maybe a few days at the most. The one with the smile-”

“O’Reilly,” Stephen supplied.

“Right, he’s got people going over missing persons reports right now. And since we’ve correlated key elements of the four victims, the profilers are having a field day.”

Nicholas leaned his elbow on the tabletop, leaning closer. “What do they have so far?”

Janine micked him, hunching over a little and looking far too conspicuious. “All around their mid-twenties-ish. Same build, roughly same height. Eye colour and hair colour are different-”

“No one’s perfect,” Stephen replied, and then winced as Nicholas kicked him in the shin.

“Now there’s this bite on the back, and the asphyxiation-”

“So it’s sexual,” Nicholas said, sipping at his coffee.

Janine paused, and deflated a little. “Yeah,” she said. “How did you know?”

“The way the bodies were positioned were a bit of a give away. Going from face up to face down, legs being spread.”

“Plus nothing makes a man hard like digging up a corpse,” Stephen added.

Janine pulled another face at him. “You really are tasteless,” she said.

“Not half as tasteless as this breakfast,” Stephen replied, dropping his fork in disgust.

“You could add some more brown sauce to it,” Nicholas suggested.

“It’s more sauce than substance as it is,” Stephen replied. “Any more and I won’t be able to taste the cardboard.”

“It’s cafeteria food,” Janine said flatly. “It can’t possibly be that bad.” Stephen picked up a piece of bacon and rapped it against the rim of his plate. It shattered. “Alright,” Janine conceded “Never let me eat here.”

Stephen stared at his plate mournfully. “I can’t understand how anyone could get bacon so wrong.”

“They do pancakes too, don’t they?” Janine said.

“The pancakes are great,” Nicholas said with a fond smile.

“Yeah,” Stephen matched it with a happy grin. “Remember that time Daggs got concussed by one?”

Janine looked back and forth between Stephen and Nicholas, before resting her chin on her palm with a sigh. “Now I know why my kind stick to the labs.”

“Because no one invites you out?” Stephen suggested.

“No. Because we get catering.”

 

 

Stephen walked Nicholas up the wide, dim staircase of his building. “It was kind of O’Reilly to send us home,” Nicholas was saying.

“You fell asleep standing up,” Stephen replied flatly. “He’d be a cruel man to make you stay.”

“He let you off, too,” Nicholas replied.

“That was Andrews,” Stephen said with a shrug. “He just doesn’t like me.”

“Don’t be silly,” Nicholas said, fiddling with his door. “Andrews is too professional not to like someone.” Stephen gave Nicholas a flat look. “Well then,” Nicholas amended, “he’s professional enough to apply the same basic level of dislike to all staff.”

Nicholas finished his communication with his door by applying his shoulder to it. It grunted open, and Stephen gingerly followed him inside.

“Are you sure this building isn’t condemned?” he asked, the vague discolorations on the wall easier to see in the morning light.

“The council retracted that notice years ago,” Nicholas replied, dropping his jacket on the kitchen table. “It’s fine.”

“It really, really isn’t,” Stephen replied, looking around Nicholas’ small space. “You really don’t own anything, do you?”

“I own a coffee table,” Nicholas replied indignantly. “Between going to uni and then coming back, I managed to get down to the bare essentials.”

“And then someone broke in and stole them, right?”

Nicholas punched Stephen on the arm, and Stephen made an attempted strike back that Nicholas dodged easily. And all-out attack was disarmed by a yelp, and a crash from the hallway. Nicholas was at the door like a shot, peering out.

“Evan?” he called, “you okay?”

“I just tripped,” Evan replied, scrambling on the concrete landing for papers and scattered pencils. “It’s fine. No, really. You don’t have to help.”

“Don’t be silly,” Nicholas said, crouching beside him and picking up papers, slipping them back into a sketchbook. “See? I’m not even looking at them.”

“Alright,” Evan said awkwardly, picking himself up off the ground. “They’re not finished, you know.”

“Well, I hope you’ll show them to me when they are,” Nicholas said, giving Evan an easy grin, grabbing him by the elbow and pulling him up the stairs.

Stephen could just make out Evan smiling shyly back, the murmured, “You’re top of the list,” seeping easily into the empty space the two left behind. Stephen leant his back against the spare patch of wall beside Nicholas’ fridge, staring at a rather content looking couch as he heard Nicholas’ footsteps skipping back down the stairs.

“Come on,” Nicholas said, snatching his jacket up off the table. “We’ve got to go.”

“What?” Stephen blinked, stumbling as Nicholas propelled him out of the flat. “But we just got here.”

“There’s just this one really important thing I need to do,” Nicholas promised, rushing them down the stairs.

“And it can’t wait until tomorrow? Or be phoned in at least?”

“I just thought of something, and I need to have it checked,” Nicholas explained as they hit the sunlight and the street outside. “It’ll be fine.”

They broke into a jog. “If this involves Janine, you’re going to be in trouble,” Stephen said grimly.

Nicholas didn’t falter in his stride, but there was a slight pause nevertheless. “Maybe you should wait outside, then.”

 

 

Things happened very quickly after that. Nicholas’ jog turned into a run, and his run turned into a sprint. The footpath caved away under their feet and mature ladies frowned in distaste as they flew past. Over the long stretch to the station – and why had they gone to Nicholas’ anyway? Stephen’s flat would have been closer, and then maybe Nicholas would have had his light bulb moment _after_ – and then the short dash up the steps to the station, and then through the front doors and it was almost surprising that no one was surprised.

Nicholas disappeared around a corner, his feet skidding on the cream linoleum and his arms stretching out and clawing for balance. And why did it have to be the fucking job that got Nicholas sweating and panting like that? A beautiful fluke of a day off. Stephen had fallen behind, and as he rounded the corner he smacked full into a rather harassed looking officer. He grabbed Swit by the forearms and barrelled her along, skipping awkwardly to avoid sending them both sprawling.

Swit shoved him away, and Stephen shoved his fringe out of his face. “What the hell is going on?” she asked.

“If I knew that,” Stephen replied, stepping around her, “I wouldn’t be running.”

And then he was chasing after Nicholas again. A trail gone cold, but there were enough puzzle pieces scattered through snatches of conversation and the way Nicholas had turned his head away, enough to know where he’d be. Stephen bit down on something unexplainable and bitter in his stomach, and jogged up the stairs to forensics, hearing Nicholas’ feet and the closing of a door above him.


	8. Nail You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No dead bodies in this chapter, I'm afraid.

Nicholas had ink on his hands, and his fingers pressed to paper when Stephen slumped against the doorframe to catch his breath, feeling hotter than he probably should. Janine was ranting about contaminated evidence, and Nicholas was saying sorry, and Janine was saying that he should have known better.

“So, what exactly is going on?” Stephen asked when the two of them paused for breath.

Janine gave him a sharp look. “Did you touch anything?”

“What?”

“No,” Nicholas answered for him. “He was downstairs.”

“Then get back on the other side of that door. You’re getting your DNA on everything.”

Stephen gave Janine a long look, before deciding that even if he tried to understand her, the resulting headache clearly wasn’t worth the effort. He stepped back out into the hallway and kicked absently at a vending machine, before slipping some coins into it. A bottle of spring water thudded down and Stephen sat a little sluggishly on a chair opposite, tilting the bottle of water back and forth in his hands, watching the bubble of trapped air slide from one end to another.

Nicholas’ shoes appeared in his line of vision. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Stephen replied.

Nicholas sat down beside him. “When was the last time you ate?”

“When you did,” Stephen replied.

Nicholas examined his hands, swiping at the ink on his fingertips with a moist towel. “You should have gotten a can of soft drink or something,” he said. “Your blood sugar-”

“Nicholas. What have you just done?”

Nicholas frowned at his fingertips. “I think I’ve just done something very stupid.”

Janine stuck her head out of the doorway, her face bright and a little mad. “Matches. We have matches for some of the partials! Thank god you got it here so fast. Bob’s calling Andrews right now.”

Stephen looked back at Nicholas. “Somehow, I’m still not getting it.”

And then things were moving quickly again.

 

 

“He lives above me,” Nicholas was saying. “Evan Meyer. He dropped a sketchbook in the hall, and the paper fell out.”

O’Reilly was leaning over a folded piece of paper that had been bagged and tagged. “The same themes,” he admitted. “But what made you think he wasn’t just-”

“The date,” Nicholas said. “November, last year. It could just be a coincidence, but.”

“But why take a chance,” Andrews finished for him.

Nicholas nodded. “I’m sorry, about getting my prints all over it. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It was good thinking,” Andrews said. “Tell us more about the layout of your building.”

Stephen stood at the doorway. The only reason he was there at all was because of the union. Two sergeants talking to a constable, you could request for a witness to the exchange. Not that Nicholas had. Stephen finally broke the seal on his bottle of water, talking a long sip.

Nicholas wouldn’t be able to go home, and he wouldn’t want to leave the station. Not until… until when? After the arrest? After the processing? After the interview and-or interrogation? Stephen stepped out of the room, needing to get away from the level voices, needing some air. Swit was waiting for him, ready to shove a chocolate bar at him.

“Have you been keeping an eye on your blood sugar level?” she asked, looking him up and down.

Stephen huffed a sigh, picking at the wrapper. “Well, at least people have stopped picking on my hair.”

“We’re waiting for you to go hypo, so we can shave it off,” Swit replied briskly. “They won’t let me on the arrest team.”

Stephen frowned, a mouthful of nougat centre distorting the line of his cheek as he tried to speak around it. “Why not?”

Swit’s mouth twisted. “Hendon’s taking care of it.”

 

 

The sun was slowly setting over London, still a hand’s width above the horizon, but sinking. Nicholas had managed to fall asleep in the break room, sitting up with his head lolling at an angle, his mouth open. Stephen and Daggs were taking turns throwing little balls of paper at him, trying to score a point. Swit had scowled over everything, hovering over shoulders and checking paperwork, shooting a dark look at Andrews as he came into the building.

“They’ve made the arrest,” he said in a low voice, “but we’re taking care of the scene.”

“With Hendon people?”

He nodded. “With Hendon people. O’Reilly’s with the suspect, I need someone to help me supervise.”

Nicholas jerked awake (causing Stephen’s last shot to go wide), and was halfway to his feet before Andrews shook his head.

“You’ve done enough,” he said. He didn’t say, _you’re too close to this_. But everyone heard it. Nicholas sank back down into his chair, a little uncertain if you knew how to look for it.

Andrews nodded at Stephen “Lykos, you may as well go home.”

Stephen gave him a wide-eyed look. “I’ll get right on that, sir.”

Andrews snorted, and was gone with Swit striding after.

 

 

Stephen jerked awake suddenly, causing a hand to pull back in alarm. “Hey,” Swit said softly. “You need to see this.”

Stephen hauled himself out of his desk chair, and stretched. Parts of his back he didn’t know he had cracked. He looked across the divider next to him. Nicholas was still asleep, cheek pressed against his desk and drooling slightly onto his mouse pad. Swit was already across the room, beckoning.

“Here,” Stephen took the rubber gloves offered and snapped them on, the rubbery scent of talc making a soft cloud around his wrists. “We got this from the boy’s room.”

Stephen didn’t make a joke about her choice of words. And he didn’t say something obvious like _it’s his sketchbook_. He could see Swit watching him, and there was one very easy way to find out why. The front cover was black plastic, and the back cover was thick cardboard. The pages in between looked soft at the edges. It started simple, bodies and bits of bodies. A pose on each page surrounded by detailed hands, or the shape of an eye drawn and redrawn in a corner. And then the poses changed, and the detail changed, and Stephen could feel something below his lungs growing heavy.

Pictures like the one Nicholas had found, or stolen, or requisitioned - depending on how you looked at it. Pictures of running, and jumping, and notes scribbled on the backs of pages. Janine was right, he had used rope. And here and there Nicholas’ face kept showing up, creeping in. If you looked right, you could see Nicholas even when he wasn’t there, in the curve of a hairline or vague lines of a uniform. And then you didn’t have to fill in the blanks anymore.

Nicholas, Nicholas, Nicholas. Stephen didn’t need to turn to the back page – more than half the book was filled with… with worship and intent. He let a gloved hand rest on one page, one page that spelt it all out so clearly. Stephen felt a little cheated that he didn’t feel much more than hollow, that the book and its pages didn’t burn or crumple. But everything feels like latex when the gloves are on.

“He was always good at faces,” a voice behind them said, making Stephen jump, and whirl around, and clutch onto the bench for balance. Nicholas stared at the sketchbook, stared at the upside down image. After a long moment, he walked away.

“Who else has seen this?” Stephen asked, watching him go.

“Not even Andrews.”

Stephen thrust the book at her. “Take it to him. Now.”

 

 

Stephen rapped his knuckles on the cubicle door. “Happy anniversary,” he said, rolling a bottle of spring water through the gap at the bottom.

Nicholas coughed in response. Stephen heard him break the seal, heard him take a mouthful and swish it around in his mouth. Heard him spit into the toilet bowl.

“If it helps,” he said when Nicholas finally emerged, leaning against a sink as Nicholas washed his face, “it happens to everyone.”

Nicholas snorted, looking at his reflection in the mirror. Cheeks pink and eyes red under the fluorescent light. Bizarrely blond and timidly blue-eyed.

“Well it does,” Stephen replied with a shrug. “Everyone’s human.”

Nicholas tore of a strip of paper towel, and pressed it to his face. “I’m starting to wonder about that.”

Swit was leaning beside the door, waiting for them. Stephen raised his eyebrows at her. “So?”

“So, O’Reilly said… well, the important this is that Andrews said for you to go home.” She looked at Nicholas. “Well, not _home_ home, but if-”

“He can stay at my place,” Stephen said. “I’ll look after him.”

Swit gave Stephen a long look. “Will you now?”

Stephen rested his hand on Nicholas’ shoulder, watching as Swit’s eyes flicked to his grip, and then away. “Yeah,” he said. “I will.”


	9. Nail You Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last thing needs to be addressed.

Stephen rapped his fingertips against the dirty colour of Nicholas’ front door, making dull hollow noises and feeling a throb from the impact settling at the joints within his hand. The music from next door filtered a little more strongly through the thin walls, and sick sunlight fell slowly through the dusty window at the end of the hallway. Stephen was halfway back to the stairwell when the door opened.

Nicholas looked out at him, a single eye and the curve of a cheek visible between the door and its frame, the bold line of a safety chain cutting the image in two. Stephen leant his back against the opposite wall. “Hey,” he said.

Nicholas closed the door, and Stephen heard the sound of the chain being slipped free. “That’s new,” he said, stepping over the threshold.

“Mrs Choong had them installed,” Nicholas replied, leaning the small of his back against his table.

“Right,” Stephen said, setting a shopping bag by his feet. Nicholas stared at it, and then stared at his own feet. “You been okay then?” Stephen asked at last.

“Yeah,” Nicholas replied, lifting a hand to rub at his nose. “Bored, mostly. Had some family stuff.”

“I heard you’ll be back at the station next week.”

“Eight days.”

Stephen nodded. “Right.”

“I mean, good intentions and all.”

“No, I get what you mean,” Stephen said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “And it’s not like the whole place isn’t useless without you.”

The corner of Nicholas’ mouth curled a little, before being pushed back into its usual line. “It is not,” he said.

Stephen shrugged. “Bits of it are.” And the sentence hung between them.

Nicholas shifted awkwardly. “Anyway-”

“I got you something,” Stephen said, nudging the bag by his foot. He passed it to Nicholas, sticking his hands back into his pockets as Nicholas stared at the greenery poking up and into the air.

“It’s a plant.”

“Good spotting, Nick. You should write that in your notebook.” Nicholas gave Stephen a look. “It’s easy enough to look after,” he tried. “Just water, really. And if you can look after a plant, you can look after yourself.”

Nicholas raised an eyebrow at him. “Should that be the other way around?”

Stephen shifted, and cleared his throat. “I had something to ask you,” he said. “It’s a bit self-centred, but-”

“No,” Nicholas said, setting the plant down on the table, sitting next to it, “it’s fine.”

Stephen sat down across from him. “It’s just… my apartment.”

“Your apartment?”

Stephen gave Nicholas a lopsided smile. “I warned you it was self-centred. But, my apartment, I like it and all. But it’s a bit small and the taps leak and things like that. And anyway there’s the one becoming available a few floors up.”

“Right.”

“And it’s nicer, and a bit bigger, and moving there would be easier than lugging my stuff halfway across London, right.”

Nicholas blinked. “It sounds like a good deal,” he said. “You should go for it.”

“Thing is,” Stephen said, staring down at his interlaced fingers, “the rent’s a bit… more. But there’s more room, so I was thinking of getting a roommate.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Nicholas agreed.

Stephen paused, and licked his lips. “And I was also thinking that you could probably do with getting out of this building,” he said, lifting his eyes to Nicholas and locking them both in place.

Nicholas stared back at him. “You’re serious?”

“I am. Two bedrooms.”

“Right.”

“It’s closer to the station.”

“It is.”

“And I’d like to have you there.”

Nicholas frowned. “So you can keep an eye one me?”

And Stephen looked back down at his hands. “No.”

Nicholas looked around his room. “I don’t have much, furniture wise.”

“I was going to suggest that we burn what you do have.” Nicholas kicked at him under the table. “It’s half-furnished anyway. We could take your coffee table, my couch.”

“You’ve been thinking about this.”

“Yeah.”

Nicholas slouched back in his seat, his hands cupped on the table in front of him. “I don’t know.”

Stephen smiled a little wanly. “I figured that.” He reached across the table, his fingertips brushing against Nicholas’. “It could be good.”

Nicholas flexed his fingers, and somehow they were tangled with Stephen’s. He stared at their hands.

“It’s not like there’s a rush, or anything,” Stephen continued. “There’s still a wait before their lease runs out, and I could decide that the extra floor to mop isn’t worth the trouble before then.”

The corner of Nicholas’ mouth quirked again. “You don’t mop.”

“I often intend to.” Which earned Stephen a small smile. “I’ve been intending to drop in on you for a while.”

“Yeah, I got your messages. Just… you know.”

Stephen ran his thumb across the back of Nicholas’ hand. “It’s fine.”

Nicholas pulled his hand away. “And thank you, for the plant,” he said, standing up.

“It’s not a problem,” Stephen replied, following suit. Nicholas stepped past him, towards the door and Stephen turned with him, a hand reaching out and grasping Nicholas’ forearm, pulling him close. “Nicholas,” he said softly.

Nicholas gave him a pained look in return, amplified by the sizzling where their bodies touched. “Steve,” he tried a little weakly. And then they were kissing. Stephen’s mouth, and Nicholas’ teeth. Nicholas running both hands through Stephen’s hair, and Stephen cupping the firmness of a hip in the hollow of his palm. Bodies tight and mouths open and that heavy kitchen table digging into Stephen’s back as he was pressed against it.

It was Nicholas who pulled away.

“Things are hard-. No, wait, things are _difficult_ right now,” he said, his cheeks flushed and his eyes uneasy, and the conflict made Stephen hurt a little.

Stephen gently leaned close, pressing their foreheads together. “They don’t have to be.”

Nicholas hesitated, needing the warm feel of fingers at his lower back before he could sink against Stephen. “I do like your building,” he admitted at last.

“Your’s has its charms too,” Stephen offered.

“Like what?”

“It makes me feel better about living anywhere else.” Nicholas punched Stephen’s hip in response, a reprimand so gentle it hardly counted at all. “We could take the chain on your door,” Stephen offered. “Make the new place feel more like home.”

“It’s not a very good chain,” Nicholas admitted. “Ali broke in the other day to return a cd while I was asleep.”

“See, there’s something wrong with the way you live when people are breaking and entering to _give_ you things rather than steal them,” Stephen said, wrapping his arms around Nicholas’ waist.

“You’re just a jaded old copper,” Nicholas replied, bumping his nose against Stephen’s.

“I’m not old,” Stephen replied, tilting his head so their lips brushed together.

“I’ve lived here a long time,” Nicholas said, his eyes still closed from closeness.

“You’ll just have to say goodbye to it very thoroughly,” Stephen replied.

Nicholas gave Stephen a sly look. “And I suppose you’ll help me with that?”

“Well,” Stephen replied, letting a hand slide slowly under the back of Nicholas’ top, “it’s what a good friend would do.”

Stephen closed his eyes again and let Nicholas kiss him, felt the slide of Nicholas’ tongue across his lower lip, felt the warmth of Nicholas’ back under his hands. Felt the afternoon sunlight shine in on them as Nicholas pressed him back against the table, as it shifted a little under their weight. They peeled shirts off slowly, hands moving with timid dedication and eyelashes lowered over blue eyes. Stephen’s mouth against Nicholas’ neck, tasting the clean tang of chain against skin.

“Something else that’s new,” he said, pulling back hooking a finger under the silver chain and peering at the medallion sitting warmly against Nicholas’ chest. Nicholas gently pushed Stephen’s hand away and pressed parted lips against the curl of fingers. Pressed himself against Stephen, and lips against lips.

Stephen eased himself up, sitting on the edge of the table with Nicholas standing between parted thighs, bare chests pressed together with gentle breaths falling over necks and shoulders. There were the twin thuds of his shoes hitting the floor, and the volume of the music next door increased. Kisses became a little harder, hands pressed a little more firmly. Gentle sighs became desperate gasps, and warm skin became damp with sweat and open-mouthed kisses. Nicholas’ hands on his fly, Stephen’s hands sliding down the back of Nicholas’ pants, and it was still slow, still hot and close and tender.

There was no sound from the apartment above, the absence unnoticed amongst soft moans and hands on skin -

“Wait. Is that a ‘yes’?”

“Stephen,” Nicholas replied absently, licking a stripe up Stephan’s neck, sucking at a pulse under his jaw, “shut up.”

\- and a clear, low chuckle before Stephen pulled Nicholas close once more.

End.


End file.
